


the unlocking and the lift away

by thatgirlwho



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Stream of Consciousness, mention of Harry/OC - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 17:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgirlwho/pseuds/thatgirlwho
Summary: And he thinks it’s the best thing he could see, coming back from the dead. He’s sure even Lazarus cried at the feet of Jesus.





	

**Author's Note:**

> New fresh fandom to get my goblin hands all over. 
> 
> This is a fic, sort of. It originally started as a headcanon thing and just grew. Enjoy?
> 
> Title from re: stacks by Bon Iver. 
> 
> Originally posted on Tumblr. Come find me there, at [notbrogues](http://notbrogues.tumblr.com)!!

Harry was in love before. Another Kingsman. Harry hadn’t been there long when an agent died in the line of duty, he had his first toast of brandy, and was set out about picking his first protege. His choice didn’t make it past the first round and it was a fine lesson for man who thought himself invincible. But the newest agent to claim the name, oh—if there wasn’t _something_ electric, magnetic, that once in a life time kind of earth shattering _something_ about him that Harry couldn’t ignore.  


Harry loved and he loved deeply. For years and years, so many years they had been fortunate enough to spend with each other, he had loved and he thought he had a lifetime ahead of him for it. He brushed with death, they both did, each day but it never felt inevitable that one of them would die. He was young and naive and brazen and believed he deserved this and that meant it was untouched, safe from fate. 

This was his fate. Their fate. Entwined and waking to each other in warmth and happiness. And Harry wanted nothing else, could imagine nothing else. Kingsman and _him._

And then–it was over in the loose stones of a cliff and a balance unbalanced. A sharp cry and the feed going dark and it was done. How quickly it came to pass, the death of a love and a life. How fast it came to a shuddering halt and how the bile in Harry’s throat burned and soured his mouth. He never fully got rid of the taste. 

And he thinks he can never love again because it would feel selfish and unfair, like his whole heart could only be for _him._ He vowed to never put himself in that position again, to be so vulnerable and to lose sight of what he was on this earth for. 

Maybe it’s when he started drinking more. Showing up late because his mornings lacked so substantially that he walked through his own life like a ghost and it made him angry that it would never be as it was and maybe he didn’t deserve it, after all. 

He won’t love like that again, he tells himself, because he doesn’t think he can. 

And things continue on and the emptiness just becomes a part of him and he learns to live with it, how it swallows him whole, a darkness that wraps itself around him like a cloak and after so many years with it, it feels like a friend. 

He lives like this because he has no other way to live. And soon enough, he can convince people it’s fine. He convinces himself he’s fine. It’s a part of him, now. Like Kingsman and long nights and a name that feels like it doesn’t fit him most days.

And then he gets that call, a message typed across the screen: _Unwin, Holborn Police Station_ , and everything changes. He doesn’t know it then, no, and really, the truth of it is that he wants to repay that old friend, the man who by some divine intervention had saved him and Harry had went about wondering for what reason he was spared when for so long he had felt like he was being drug along on strings. 

The ache was old but still an ache, one that pulls and strains and he goes to bed, to that empty bed, and the lack of _him_ never got any easier as they said it would. 

But there’s something about this boy–not like it was with _him_. But it was something. Small and easily brushed aside but maybe Harry just made it that way. He had never been much good with change, not when he wasn’t sure he couldn’t live without the misery. 

And it stays that way for awhile, repaying the favour. He enjoys the time he spent with the boy; the quick wit of brash humour and the inquisitive tilt of his head and that grin that lit his face bright. He saw his father in him, that loyalty Harry so appreciated, because _that_ cannot be taught so easily. 

Eggsy proves that Harry has made the right decision, even if getting to the point was akin to charging headfirst through a crowd. 

But then. It turns on him and he can’t stop it. The care, distant and practical, burrows itself in his heart and it blooms there, taking hold of him. He ignores it for the better of him, of Eggsy, of Kingsman. _He cannot, he cannot be that man again_. It is unfair to pretend he has the fortitude otherwise, when he still wakes in the middle of the night, his hands grasping onto the side of the bed he doesn’t sleep on anymore, seeking _him._

He feels betrayed by his own heart, that there was a disconnect between it and his head, where the logical course would be to not allow this to go on any further. But the warmth of Eggsy is like the sun in winter and he’s drawn to it and finds himself falling into it, wanting the comfort he thinks he can find there while feeling like a hypocrite for wishing it gone. 

His heart is too broken, he’s left it in pieces for so long that the parts he needs are swept away, long forgotten and lost; the edges left have been worn down so that if he could find them, surely the old parts wouldn’t fit. 

But, oh, how that battered heart beats again for a boy that looks at Harry like he’s a saving grace. 

And the night they stand in Harry’s kitchen, forgotten ice Eggsy spilled melting in puddles on his counter, empty martini glasses leaving rings of water, the heat rising in his cheeks and Eggsy laughing like his life hasn’t ruined him and Harry is _jealous_ it hasn’t. And for a moment, just a moment, he wants to reach out for Eggsy and taste the gin and warmth on his lips, and he thinks this could be okay. Then the moment passes, crowded out by the myriad of thoughts, couched in guilt and fear and uncertainty. 

But the moment never leaves, not truly, and it’s fuelled by the way Eggsy’s eyes never leave him and the fond smile on the boy’s face. And it’s cemented in the disappointment when Eggsy doesn’t have the merit to finish out his training, the kind that wrenches your soul and leaves you drifting between anger and remorse, the kind of disappointment that only comes from love. 

He knows that disappointment and he wants nothing more than to fix it.

Because it’s true when he says, _Don’t you see everything I’ve done is to repay him,_ but it’s also true what he wants to say, what he doesn’t say, what he meant to and was stopped from, _Don’t you know that I love you more than I can bear._

And he should have said it. He could have. But right then, he didn’t have time. Should have made the time, in hindsight, but it’s always better in hindsight; how he knows _years and years and years_ is nowhere near enough. It would be selfish to say it and leave Eggsy there with a truth that he may not want, with the truth that Harry, an old and broken man, looked at Eggsy like he was a saving grace. 

He thought he would have time, when he got back. 

And then, in the parking lot of a church filled with bodies and their blood on his hands, he dies. 

And for some reason, once again, he’s given a second chance. And all the thoughts of wondering why him, why he survived, why a legacy of a family was placed in his hands, why he was always coming back, is answered. For him. 

Eggsy. Now _him._

And he won’t, he will not, waste his second of second chances. 

(Another long sleep in the hospital underneath the Kingsman estate, of things coming and going, and a soft mumble of words that barely reach his ears, and a distant knowledge that time passes on without him. He wakes, limbs sore and mouth dry, incessant beeping the first noise he knows, and plastic the first thing he tastes, and _Eggsy_ , dear boy, curled up beside his bed in a chair and sleeping, face scrunched up like he’s thinking too hard, is the first thing he sees. 

And he thinks it’s the best thing he could see, coming back from the dead. He’s sure even Lazarus cried at the feet of Jesus.)

He feels as if he hasn’t seen Eggsy in lifetimes, _dear boy oh my dear boy_  , standing before him in the pinstripe suit, polished Oxfords, hair swept back and he’s _shaking_ . And he’s shouting and he’s slamming his hands against Harry’s chest because _you left me, you left me, everyone fucking leaves–_

And the parts of his heart he had forgotten tremble to life and _aches_ to be made whole. And it won’t be like how it was, and some parts will always be empty and will always belong to a man he loved before and they can’t be taken back, but there’s the rest. So much left for him to give and he’s scared. He’s terrified because it is inevitable. He’s not so foolish to think that it isn’t. 

But even if it is, does that mean he shouldn’t love again? 

So, Eggsy is here before him and Harry feels worn and sorry and maybe this isn’t for them. Maybe Eggsy deserves more than what Harry can offer. 

But there’s shaking hands clenched in fists against his chest and frantic shallow breaths hot against his shoulder and he thinks it’s unfair. And it’s selfish. For him to think Eggsy might love him as much. 

But he’s an old man. Thinking, hoping he might not have to be as broken anymore. And even if it’s not how it was before or how he thought it could be, if Eggsy isn’t what’s meant to save him, he’s still alright with being a ghost. 

_I won’t, I won’t leave you, not again._

And Eggsy stills and Harry counts the minutes between heartbeats, his arms wrapped around Eggsy’s shoulders, fingers in his hair, taking what time he has now to love _him_ while he can. 

And Eggsy looks up at him, his eyes bloodshot and wide, his own hand coming up to Harry’s face, gliding his thumb across his jaw, something so tender about that touch that it sends Harry reeling, his life that he thought ended so many lifetimes ago coming back with a start that nearly sends him to his knees with the force of it. 

Coming back to life. Second chances. He’s been given so many. He doesn’t want to waste them. 

(And now it’s not about mending pieces and it’s not about filling the places someone else used to exist in but how Eggsy comes in loud and bright and beautiful and _careful_ and makes his own place because he knows that some shoes cannot be filled, certain things cannot be replaced. And he takes the side of the bed that was empty for so long and when Harry wakes in the middle of night, ghost hands already searching, Eggsy reaches out and finds him first, a gentle hand around his wrist, sleep-mumbled words that Harry doesn’t understand but knows. It’s not about before and what Harry thought he could never get back. It’s about now and having that emptiness still with him… but Eggsy’s here, too. And Harry thinks _, this will be okay._ )

He thinks it’s the saddest things he’s ever done, he’s ever felt, kissing Eggsy. 

A soft reminder that there’s parts of him he can’t give, that he’s selfish for loving Eggsy because of it. But it doesn’t stop him and it’s sad, terribly sad because he thinks he should know better than to let himself be like this again. 

And when Eggsy kisses him back, hands still on his face, _kisses him back_ with shaking breath and reverence, it’s a sad reminder that Harry spent far too much time in memories and how foolish he was for wasting the time bestowed upon him, without a thought to how careless he could be with it, concerned in the fear of what he thought he couldn’t give. 

But Eggsy wasn’t concerned with that. Not at all. 

_Took you long enough, you know._

And Harry can’t help but smile, but laugh, kissing Eggsy like this, like it’s bringing him back to life. Because he is, he really is. He _brought_ him back to life in so many ways. 

And he knows now that Eggsy won’t let him waste another a minute.


End file.
